muzzled, and secured to the ground, and retired in safety to his house, whilst the unfortunate animal was dispatched by a shower of bullets from the pistols of Ali's supposed assassins. The appearance of a party of his retainers at the instant compelled them to retire without examining the body; and in the evening, whilst drowned in debauchery and wine, they were assailed and slaughtered by his followers; their goods and houses were confiscated to his soldiers, and from that hour Ali became absolute in Tepeleni.* He now employed every engine of intrigue and tyranny to establish and extend his power; his soldiers he attached to him by gold, by promises, and by companionship; and his people he conciliated by an anxiously assumed display of justice and impartiality. Every step, however, in his higher walks of ambition was based upon the blackest crimes; in the hope of succeeding to the pachalic of Argyrocastro he induced his sister Chaïnitza to unite with him in murdering her husband, and when, contrary to his calculations, the office was conferred on another, Selim Coka, he denounced him to the Porte as a traitor, and stabbed him with his own hand, in pursuance of the Sultan's firhman. A.D. .1779. A.D. For this service he was rewarded with the 1787. pachalic of Triccala, in Thessaly,* and subsequently advanced to the office of Dervendji Bachi. From this appointment Ali dates his first firm advancement towards power and fortune. Under the pretext of ridding the passes of robbers, he attached around him an army of followers whose influence became paramount in Northern Greece, and whose expeditions quickly restored tranquillity to Thessaly. Justly conceiving that the Greeks were not the only brigands in his dominions, he was careful to let the disorderly Ottomans share an equal portion of his retributive hostility; and by taking into his pay those of the Klefts and Armatoli who were willing to serve against the Infidels, he succeeded in attaching to himself the leaders of both parties. The Porte, though sometimes alarmed for his power, were never able to deprive him of it; and Ali had always in readiness some complaint against robbers, some encomium of his services, or some petition for their continuance, on every occasion when the question of his deposition was agitated at Constantinople.+ In a short time, so successful had been his expeditions, and so * Hughes, p. 105. + Leake's Outline, &c. p. 32. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 49. prodigious his wealth, that he was enabled to purchase, in addition to his Thessalian honours, the government of Joannina, which rendered him at once undisputed master of Epirus. In this, as in the attainment of his other objects, his favourite agents, gold, poison, and deceit, were again successful. By false representations of his patriotic intentions towards Greece, he induced the chiefs of the Etolian Klefts, Palæopoulo, Canavos, and Boukovallos, to second his designs; and whilst these, by his directions, made frequent and devastating incursions into the territory of Joannina, each ruinous event was reported to the Divan with bitter complaints against the imbecility of the Pacha; and Epirus and Arta were represented as a desert, whilst Thessaly was flourishing under the auspices of Ali. The next step was, naturally, to point out the secret author of these disturbances as the only individual capable of quelling them. In this particular crisis, Calo Pacha, who had for fifteen years been governor of Joannina, expired most unexpectedly. Ali, the only aspirant to his office who had anticipated his decease,* was already prepared with the firhman of his own nomination to the vacant pachalic; and whilst the Beys of the city were plotting to prevent his entering Joan * He had caused him to be poisoned. A.D. 1788. 1788. A.D. nina, the Cadi had already acknowledged and promulgated the sacred document.* Khamco did not survive to witness this distinguished fortune of her favourite son; she expired whilst the intrigues for his investiture were still in progress. Ali was not present to receive her last wishes, but they were conveyed to him in her will, which even in her expiring moments still breathed fury and revenge; it conjured him to immolate to her manes the wretches of Tchormovo and Gardiki, from whom she had endured the horrors of violation and slavery; and Ali and Chaïnitza swore above the still warm corpse of their mother that their vengeance should end only with the extermination of her enemies.† One of his earliest cares, on finding himself firmly established in Epirus by the ruin of the Beys, was the partial accomplishment of this filial vow. Veiling his designs under the most cautious pretences, he advanced upon Tchormovo; and whilst his lieutenant, Demir Dost, deluded the devoted inhabitants by the hopes of an amnesty and peace, he burst unexpectedly into the village and butchered without discrimination every wretch who had failed in * Hughes, p. 117. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 57. Dufey, v. i. p. 42. Dr. Holland, c. vi. p. 106. Hobhouse, v. i. c. xi. p. 115. + Hughes, p. 113. 1788. escaping by flight. The individual who had A.D. been the immediate agent of Khamco's dishonour was amongst the first objects of his vengeance; his execution was superintended by Youseph the Arab, who caused him to be impaled upon an iron spit, and slowly roasted between two vessels of burning coals. This exploit was the first in which the two sons of Ali by Emineh, Mouctar and Veli, fleshed their swords, and its success was celebrated by dances, feasting, games, and all the pageants of barbaric triumph. The booty of the immolated villagers was distributed to the soldiery; the very doors and tiles of the houses of Tchormovo were carried off by the conquerors ere they consigned their ruined walls to the flames; and Ali, in addition to the gratification of his ferocious revenge, added to his dominions by the expedition the canton of Conitza, a part of Premeti, the valley of Karamouratadez, and the town of Liboôvo.* him, Pacha of Berat, son-in-law and successor to Courd, whom I have before mentioned, could not regard without irritation this invasion of districts which were submitted to his jurisdiction. He made a faint show of resistance; Ali opposed a body of Grecian Klefts to his Mahomedan forces, and Ibrahim *Hughes, v. ii. p. 114. Pouqueville, v. i. p. 61. Ibra |